


if you could only see the beast you've made of me

by starblessed



Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: Awkward Conversations, M/M, Werewolves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-31
Updated: 2017-10-31
Packaged: 2019-01-27 00:27:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12569576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starblessed/pseuds/starblessed
Summary: To his credit, Dick hardly looks fazed. Nix supposes he should be grateful for this. It’s far from the first time Dick has seen him naked — hell, it’s not the first time he’s seen him naked in the middle of the woods — but the scratch marks covering his entire body are new. They’ll wear off by the end of the day, Nix knows, but until then he would have preferred to keep them out of Dick’s sight.Nothing is hidden from Dick right now. He’s completely bare — whether he likes it or not. It makes the situation much more awkward than it needs to be.





	if you could only see the beast you've made of me

**Author's Note:**

> Of course, the characters in this fic are based off of their fictional portrayals from the miniseries Band of Brothers, and I mean no disrespect to the real-life veterans!
> 
> Find me on tumblr at [renelemaires](http://renelemaires.tumblr.com/)!

“Soooo,” Nix says, dragging the word out for so long that it’s almost painful. “Would an explanation make things _better_ or _worse_ here?”

To his credit, his boyfriend hardly looks fazed. Nix supposes he should be grateful for this. It’s far from the first time Dick has seen him naked — hell, it’s not the first time he’s seen him naked in the middle of the woods — but the scratch marks covering his entire body are new. They’ll wear off by the end of the day, Nix knows, but until then he would have preferred to keep them out of Dick’s sight.

Nothing is hidden from Dick right now. He’s completely bare — whether he likes it or not. It makes the situation much more awkward than it needs to be.

“I should have guessed,” Dick remarks. He sounds wry, like he’s finding this situation funny. It’s _not_ funny (it’s cold, dammit); but considering his other option was to run off screaming, Nix is grateful for the mild reaction.

“You didn’t, though. I was subtle.” Nix subtly shifts to hide his privates. This has the bonus effect of exposing his bare ass to the early-morning breeze. He winces, and spots Dick fighting to hide a smile.

“You exploded into a dog in the middle of dinner and ran off howling towards the woods. That’s subtle?”

Okay, well, maybe not.

The real tragedy here is that Nix didn’t even get the chance to say goodbye to his self-respect before it vanished forever. There are things he’ll be able to live down, eventually. This isn’t one of them.

“This,” Nix says. “This is an outlier. This doesn’t normally happen.”

“Do you normally raid the neighbor’s henhouses, or carry the local children off to the woods?”

“That’s not nice,” Nix retorts. There aren’t many options in the way of self-respect here, but Dick doesn’t have to be so darn amused by it. This is an off morning for Nix. It’s been a weird week overall, but this — well, he won’t say he’s never been in this situation before, but that doesn’t make it pleasant. Especially not when he’s faced with Dick’s scrutiny. Dick, who he’s known for so long that he can almost imagine knows everything about him. Dick, the closest person to him in the world. Dick, who’s just moved them both from Nixon to a quiet little farm in the middle of the Pennsylvania countryside, only to have his boyfriend burst into…

Well. At least Nix makes an attractive dog.

“Come on, Dick, you’ve known me for years,” he sighs.

“Yet the werewolf thing somehow never came up.”

“I have medication I take. It keeps me from changing on most full moons. In New York, you can barely see the moon; overseas, I’d take a double dose just in case. I guess I need to do that here too, otherwise I really might get at the chickens.” (It would serve them right. The little bastards hate Nix as much as he hates them. He wished Dick had made him aware before he convinced him to move here that chickens are evil incarnate — but maybe they both had their secrets.)

The moon is strong here. It was strong in Normandy too, with a lot more stress on Nix’s plate; it was strong in Holland, whenever it wasn’t raining; it was strong in Austria. Here, though, the moon is the strongest Nix has ever felt. It probably doesn’t help that he’s just so damn happy to be here.

Maybe he took less medication than normal. Maybe he just wasn’t ready for the force of the full moon. Maybe he thought he was content enough that the change wouldn’t kick in. He has no clue what happened, but he’s here now, laid bare — literally. What Dick does next is up to him.

Nix can’t help but be surprised when Dick crouches down, level to his face. “You could have told me.”

Nix sucks the insides of his lips. He could have. He just didn’t want to. “There’s a stigma,” he says eventually, though they both know Dick doesn’t give half a damn about any social opinion save the conclusions he’s drawn for himself. Dick judges by the individual, and for some reason he saw something worth living in Nix.

The idea of losing that _killed_ him.

Only now, Dick knows. He finally knows everything, and he isn’t walking away. He’s… smiling. He has a hand resting on the back of Nix’s neck, and he’s smiling in that sort of beatific, half-amused way that gets under Nix’s skin every time, in the best sense possible. He isn’t leaving Nix behind. He isn’t afraid.

“You know,” he remarks, “I never thought I’d fall in love with a werewolf.”

“Well,” says Nix, “I’m just full of surprises.”

Dick’s hand grips his shoulder, a squeeze of affection that makes Nix feel overwhelmed with warmth. He exhales, and the last of the gnawing tension he’s been harboring for years fades out of him. He has no secrets from Dick anymore.

“Come on, Nix,” Dick says. “Let’s go home.”

“Sounds great,” Nix replies. “I’d love to put on some clothes.”


End file.
